#i hope i didnt mischaracterize too badly

[telehxhtrash]

GON FREECSS IS NOT INSANE (and the next person who says he is is getting their shins broken)

Hi ! Welcome to another one of my brainrot analysis, and this one is entirely fueled by my hatred of people who mischaracterize Gon. I keep on seeing people say that Gon is crazy, unhinged, a psychopathic monster who only plays a role of the innocent kid. 

He’s not.

Gon is a 12 year old with severe trauma due to his dad’s abandonment and unhealthy standards and with a chaotic moral compass forged by his childhood spent on an isolated island.

He’s not a sociopath, not a psychopath, not a monster, not unhinged. He’s just a 12yo thrown in a ruthless world where he has to constantly prove his worth to feel like he can live up to his dad’s expectations. 

We’re so used to seeing shounen protagonists be happy, go-lucky characters who never suffer any real mental consequences from their past or adventures that some people have a hard time realizing that it’s just not realistic. 

Gon is a realistic portrayal of what happens to an abandoned child tossed in a merciless world where he constantly has to prove his worth. And of course, it’s not pretty. It’s terrifying to see Gon’s evolution, and it’s scary to see him slowly lose it. But it doesn’t make him a monster. It makes him feel human. 

Gon is introduced as this happy, cheery, stubborn kid who never backs down from a fight and likes the thrill of putting his life in danger. Which is…. normal in the shonen world, I’d say. But it’s really not normal for a 12yo, and when you take all the following events into account, it’s clear that Gon is not a normal shonen protagonist.

Gon is a very, very stubborn kid, and we get to see that very early in the manga. The one event that strikes me the most is during his face-off with Hanzo. 

Gon gets absolutely destroyed. He’s pretty much getting tortured, with Hanzo breaking his left arm and threatening to cut off the rest of his limbs if he doesn’t surrender. But Gon doesn’t back down. And it’s terrifying. 

No matter how much pain he’s in, no matter the consequences, he refuses to give up. 

Because he hates being seen as weak.

Gon refuses to show any hint of weakness, and gets extremely mad whenever people perceive him as such. It doesn’t matter what the consequences are, he will NEVER back down. He’ll never be weak, even if it kills him.

And we’ve seen this a lot throughout the manga. Right after he shows his Ren to Tsezguerra during the Greed Island interview, Gon is pissed because he felt like he was being treated like trash. Same thing during early Chimera Ant Arc, when Kite tells Gon and Killua to fight Rammott, Gon gets really, really mad when Kite implies that if they can’t defeat him, that means they’re weak. 

Gon really, really struggles with being perceived as weak. It’s the one thing he hates the most. That’s why he’s stubborn about this and never backs down even if it costs him his life : he wants to prove his worth. He feels that need to prove he’s not weak, to prove he’s not trash. 

Weakness is not an option. He has to get stronger and stronger and stronger, because at the end of the road lies his goal : Ging.

And to me, Ging explains Gon’s most prominent character traits. Because Ging not only created those traits, but he also enabled them.

In shonen anime, oftentimes, the main protagonist’s dad is out of the picture, but it never truly has any impact on the character’s mental state or behavior. This is not the case in Hunter x Hunter.

Ging leaving left Gon with deep, deep trauma, and an extremely distorted view on his self-worth that leads him to overcompensate with physical strength. 

When a child gets abandoned, they usually blame themselves. It creates that feeling of guilt, that maybe their parent left because of them, and that they weren’t and AREN’T important for them to just walk out like this.

This feeling of guilt and shame creates a twisted self esteem in that child, making them believe that they aren’t important, that they aren’t of value. That they aren’t worth anything. Because their parents left them, it surely had to do with them, right ?

Gon has that distorted self-esteem that a child experiences after being abandoned. He has absolutely 0 value over his own body, constantly breaking it, pushing it past its limit to reach his goals, and this lack of self-worth and need to prove his worth is oftentimes represented physically by Gon hurting/losing his arm. 

Everytime Gon loses/hurts his arm, it’s always after doing something out of need for validation. In Hunter Exam Arc, it’s right after refusing to let Hanzo win. In Heaven’s Arena Arc, it’s after he uses zetsu to win, no matter the consequences. In Yorknew Arc, Gon gets his hand destroyed by Nobunaga/his arm almost broken off by Feitan after he stood up to them. In Greed Island, Gon loses his hand for the sole purpose of training. And lastly, in Chimera Ant Arc, he loses his arm entirely after destroying Pitou in an attempt to ease his guilt.

Gon really struggles with his self-worth, and it’s also illustrated during the time they’re held hostage by Nobunaga, when Killua insists that he’ll stop his blade so that Gon can escape, even if it costs him his life. To which Gon replies with a sentence that is extremely crucial to be able to understand Gon’s character.

”I can say I’ll die, but you can’t !”

Gon values Killua’s life more than his own. He gets to talk about death, he gets to be hurt, he gets to put his life in danger, because it’s fine if he does it, but Killua is absolutely not allowed to. Gon has absolutely no value over his own life, and doesn’t care if he dies. He doesn’t care if he gets hurt. Because at the end of the day, his body is not of value, and I truly believe that Ging’s abandonment left him with a feeling that he wasn’t of value as a whole.

And to me, this broken sense of self-worth is what created Gon’s hatred of being seen as weak. Because if he shows weakness, then Ging was right to abandon him. If he’s weak, then that means he’s trash, and worth nothing. If he doesn’t live up to his dad’s expectation, then what’s the point ? He’d mean nothing. He’d be no one. Just a small island boy whose dad left because his job was more interesting. That’s why he has to prove his worth no matter what.

Finding Ging is like this Holy Grail to Gon. It’s the ultimate goal. Like Kite said the first time he met him, it’s the ultimate hunt. It’s something that proves you’re worthy. So of course, Gon has to do everything in his power to find him. Because he wants to prove his worth. He wants to find his dad and prove that he’s not weak.

And to me, that’s why Gon is so stubborn and self-destructive.

I mentioned that Hanzo fight earlier, and there’s something interesting that happens during that fight that can be used to illustrate this. 

Hanzo asks why Gon is so stubborn, why he refuses to back down when he could just lose this match and face someone else. It’s true, Gon could have easily given up and fought someone else, he could’ve won then. But he refused to even consider the possibility. He had to win THIS fight. But why ? Is it out of pride ? Is it out of pure stubbornness ? 

Well, as Gon says himself :

It has nothing to do with pride or being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. It’s easy. If he shows weakness once, he’s not worthy. He’s not worthy of finding Ging, and he’s worth less than trash. Because if he’s weak, he doesn’t deserve to find him.

And this is so, so important. Because this is the reason Gon never backs down from anything, even at the cost of his limbs. Because like he said, if he loses, he thinks that he won’t be able to meet Ging. So he has to do ANYTHING, anything at all, no matter the cost, to be able to find him.

That’s why he’s not backing down from the Hanzo fight at the cost of his arm. That’s why he’s using zetsu during his fight against Gido, even if it’s dangerous, because that’s what he has to do to get stronger. That’s why he purposefully blasts off his own hand during his fight with Genthru. Because he has to get stronger, no matter the cost. 

And Ging enables him. By making him feel like Gon has to “earn” the right to see him, Ging is fueling Gon’s self-destructive behavior. 

Ging enables him when he tells him that he has to hunt him to find him, that he doesn’t want to see him and that he’ll run away when he senses him coming. That cat and mouse game is putting extreme pressure on Gon’s shoulders. His dad expects great things of him. He expects strength, and he expects him to find him. It’s a challenge. And an unhealthy one.

Greed Island is another example of that unhealthy challenge and the pressure of Ging’s expectations. Greed Island was created for Gon. It was created to train him, and as Bisky says herself :

If Gon wants to see Ging, he has to be strong. He has to always be stronger and stronger so he can earn the right to see him.

Quoting one of my references here, but this is also a form of abandonment that fuels Gon’s self destructive behavior.

All of these expectations put extreme pressure on Gon’s shoulders. Because he has to keep on pushing further and further, always improving, always getting stronger, and he’s not allowed to show weakness because it’d mean losing his goal.

But showing weakness wouldn’t only mean he’d lose his goal. Being weak would also mean he’d lose Killua.

I mentioned that when a child gets abandoned, they fear it’s their fault and develop a broken sense of self-worth. But that’s not all. After having been hurt, it’s normal to try and minimize the risk of being hurt again. You’d do anything to not be walked out on again. And that’s what Gon is doing. His fear of vulnerability and weakness is a fear of rejection and abandonment.

That’s also why Gon hates being seen as weak. Because if he’s weak, not only is he not living up to his dad’s expectations, but he’s also running the risk of Killua walking out on him. Because he’s scared that if he shows weakness, Killua will leave him, just like Ging did. Because he’s not strong enough to keep him, or anyone by his side.

And to make up for that overwhelming feeling of insecurity and his guilt over being weak, Gon overcompensates with physical strength and stubbornness. We’ve seen it multiple times throughout the manga. Gon purposefully gets hurt when facing a dangerous situation, just so he can prove his worth. Just so he can get stronger. 

Gon overcompensates and takes everything onto his shoulders for this sole purpose of proving he’s worthy of staying.

Take the dodgeball match during Greed Island arc. There’s an interesting thing happening during the match that says a lot about Gon.

When Killua almost gets killed by Razor, it makes Gon’s blood boil. He’s furious and enraged that Razor dared try to hurt Killua. Because Killua has NOTHING to do with this. He’s only here because of Gon, and here he is, risking his life for him. Razor is putting Killua’s life in danger because of Gon. And that makes Gon go feral. 

But the most interesting line happens here :

“I have to crush him completely”

Gon completely shuts off Killua at this point. He says HE has to be the one to crush him completely. He’s taking this responsibility onto himself, he has to be the one to defeat Razor, it’s his role. His and no one else’s.

And to me, that’s another sign of overcompensation fueled by abandonment issues. Gon feels guilt at what just happened. Killua shouldn’t have to risk his life to hang out with Gon. He has nothing to do with this, he’s only here because he wants to, and it drives Gon mad that Razor is trying to hurt him when it has nothing to do with him.

So because he feels guilt, because him not being able to protect Killua fully is a sort of weakness, he overcompensates with strength and by wanting to handle everything alone.

He affirms that he will take the responsibility of winning against Razor. It’s his fault Killua almost got hurt, so he has to bear the consequences alone. He has to make things right, no matter the cost. He has to show strength. He has to prove his worth.

Because what if Killua left him because he wasn’t strong enough?

I think this situation illustrates pretty well Gon’s trauma-fueled thought process :

• “It’s my fault this is happening because I’m too weak” (sparked by his twisted self-worth due to his abandonment issues)

• “So I have to bear the consequences alone” (to prove his worth as to not be abandoned again)

• “I won’t back down under any circumstance because my life has no value” (because of his lack of self-worth once again)

And this pattern is found in any situation in the manga. When Gon lets Kon scratch his arm until he bleeds to keep Kite from killing him, he’s doing it because it’s his fault Kon’s mom had to die. When Gon refuses to back down from Hanzo’s fight as he keeps breaking multiple parts of his body, he’s doing it because he believes that if he’s weak and backs down he won’t be worth seeing Ging. When Razor almost kills Killua, Gon flips out and emphasizes that he has to crush Razor because it’s his fault Killua is here and he won’t back down on kicking Razor’s ass.  And that’s why when Kite dies and Gon sees his mangled body, he tells Killua “I’m taking on that one (Pitou) alone” : because Kite got hurt because of his weakness, Gon has to make amends in any way possible.

That’s why Gon hurts himself, that’s why he’s constantly putting everything on his shoulders : he has no value over his own life. He’s focused on proving he’s worth something at any cost.

And those escalating feelings of insecurity and this behavioral pattern are exactly why Gon broke down during Chimera Ant Arc. Because everything that was piling up went crumbling down when he saw Kite’s arm being cut off. Because he was weak for an instant.

It was his fault. It was his fault, because he was weak, because he couldn’t defend Kite, because even though Kite had just lost a limb, he was still stronger than both Gon and Killua combined. If he had just trained harder, if he had put his life on the line more, if he pushed himself past his limit, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. It was his fault. 

At that precise moment when Kite’s arm got severed, every single insecurity that Gon had from the beginning of this manga is flooding in. Gon feels weak, he feels guilt, he feels like all of this is his fault. He feels like he wasn’t enough.

And because it’s his fault, he has to take everything on his shoulders. He has to be the one to bear the weight of his mistake alone. He has to be the one to carry the burden. Just like that dodgeball match.

Because he just lost everything. He showed weakness once, and everything crumbled. He had just gotten his dad’s student hurt, and that weakness meant that he also just lost his goal of finding Ging. Because now that he showed a hint of weakness, Ging would never want to see him. Gon had just lost everything. His mentor, his goal, and his weakness might drive Killua away too. 

That’s why he put everything on his shoulder and vowed to make things right. Because he wanted to prove to himself, to Ging, to Kite, and more importantly to Killua that he could do this alone. That he wasn’t a failure. That he wasn’t weak. That he was worthy of staying. 

That’s why when he sees Kite’s mangled body, he tells Killua that he’s taking onto Pitou alone. Because it’s his responsibility. He has to make things right. It was his fault for being weak. It’s his fault Kite got hurt.

And at that moment, Gon probably already knew that he wouldn’t stop at any cost. Because it was a quest to assuage his guilt. It was a quest to make things right and prove that he wasn’t weak, that he could fix things, that he was still worthy of Kite and Ging and Killua. That he wasn’t a failure. So he pushed past his limit. Took everything onto his shoulders. Pushed Killua away, because it has nothing to do with him. It’s his own mistake, not Killua’s. 

Him going after Pitou is his attempt at redemption, a plea for help. A plea for someone to realize his worth. A plea to not be abandoned again.

And that’s why Gon is not a monster. He’s just a terrified child. 

During Chimera Ant Arc, he’s bottling up his feelings of inadequacy and guilt just so he could attempt to fix the mess he created, attempting to carry everything on his shoulders alone, because he can’t afford to drag anyone else into his mess, especially not Killua.

Gon is not a monster for pushing Killua away. It is not a sign of him being unhinged or manipulative. It’s an act of protection. An act of love, his way of saying “This is my mess and I have to fix this, I can’t let you get hurt for my sake.”. It’s the desperate attempt of a broken 12 year old to try and make things right.

Gon is not a monster because he threatened Komugi. It was a desperate attempt at regaining a sense of control on the situation. 

Because Gon’s morality has always been weird, it broke him to see Pitou heal Komugi. He couldn’t comprehend why something he categorized as evil was doing something as pure as healing. Just like that time during York New Arc ! Gon couldn’t understand why Chrollo was mourning the death of one of his members when he showed no remorse relentlessly killing innocent people. This inability to understand that bad people can do good things already broke Gon during YN arc, and it happened again during Chimera Ant Arc. 

He had nowhere to put his anger. All this time, he created this mental picture of Pitou in his head, this one where they’re an evil, evil villain who could never do anything good, he classified them as bad and that was that. But faced with them performing a pure act of healing, it broke Gon. He had no outlet for his anger.

So he did what a 12 year old with a broken sense of worth and a need for validation would do : he overcompensated with even more anger.

In a desperate attempt at regaining a bit of control on the situation, his last resort was to threaten an innocent life. To take her hostage. 

Because if he couldn’t make things right, he’d just lost everything. No matter the cost. No matter what happens. He had to do this. He had to ease his guilt.

Gon is not a monster because he sacrificed his life. He’s not a monster because he turned into an adult version of himself. He’s not a monster because he bashed Pitou’s skull in until it was mush. It was the actions of a broken boy who had nothing left. Who had just lost everything. Because Kite wasn’t hurt, he was DEAD. He was dead by his fault, it was his fault. He had nothing else to live for, because he was weak and lost everything. 

So he decided to kill himself to take down Pitou. Because he didn’t deserve to live. And this “fight” with Pitou wasn’t even to avenge Kite’s death. It was an attempt to ease his guilt. To feel a little better, because he might’ve lost everything, but at least he took down Pitou with him. 

I’m not condemning Gon’s actions or excusing them. At all. He made mistakes, and committed actions that are hard to excuse. But it was out of despair. It came out of years of pent up trauma and insecurities. His actions were a cry for help.

Gon didn’t “snap” out of nowhere. He always felt weak and insecure, he always had a broken sense of self-worth that led him to be self-destructive and overcompensate by taking everything onto his shoulders.

Chimera Ant Arc just pushed him past his limit. But this darkness, this plea for help, this trauma was always there in Gon’s heart. But it doesn’t mean he’s crazy. He’s just a child with abandonment issues and deep trauma.

To summarize, Ging’s physical and emotional abandonment left Gon with deep wounds that reflected in his behavior. Gon feels weak and insecure, he has no self-worth and a deep need to prove his value which leads him to constantly exhibit self-destructive behavior for the sole purpose of living up to his dad’s expectations and proving his worth. 

Gon feels the need to prove his worth and handle everything alone in an attempt to appear strong, and this unhealthy standards he puts onto himself and that Ging’s behavior enables are what ultimately led to his breakdown.

Because when Kite’s arm flew off, so did Gon’s entire reason to exist. 

He blamed himself for it, cursed his weakness and desperately attempted to make things right no matter the cost. Even if it meant death. Because death is better than being weak. Death is better than the guilt of having let his mentor down. Death is better than being rejected by his dad for his mistake. Death is better than being abandoned by his best friend.

And this deep, suffocating agony is what led Gon to act the way he did during Chimera Ant Arc.

It wasn’t the acts of a crazy, psychopathic monster. It was the act of a kid, desperately pleading for help.

But this breakdown was a good thing. No, really, it was. It was necessary.

Chimera Ant Arc was written to break down Gon to his core, to break his character in the worst possible way to annihilate the toxic traits he had.

His stubbornness, fear of weakness and self-destructive behavior were always going to break him in the end. But now that he knows what happens when you let all of this take over, it won’t happen again.

Gon is back to square one. Clean start, new beginning. Back to Whale Island with no nen, no goal, and with his best friend gone. 

And while some people might see this as depressing, or a sign that Gon didn’t change at all during the manga, it’s actually the exact opposite. It represents a second chance.

It’s the purest form of second chance he can get. He’s back to zero, and he has a blank canvas to be able to fix every wrong he made in the past.

With no nen, he now has the opportunity to learn it the proper way, taking his time to enjoy the process, learning it for pure purposes and not rushing to get stronger for the sole purpose of proving his worth.

With no goal, he’s free to find something that he wants to do for himself, not live in Ging’s shadow. He gets to be who he wants to be, with no unhealthy expectations.

With Killua gone, he gets to reflect on their relationship. He gets to realize the wrongs he’s made, the what-ifs and lost opportunities, he gets to realize how much Killua means to him. 

This second chance is not a curse, it’s a blessing. Because it’s exactly what Gon needed to be able to heal. 

And I’m willing to bet that this will be Gon’s final character arc : healing. We’ll get to see Gon act in ways that highlight how much he’s changed, showcasing his growth. When he was stubborn, hot-headed and impulsive, he’ll have learned to be more calm and composed. When he was always looking to prove his worth and look for strength, he’ll have learned that his true value lies in who he is and in the little detours of his travels. 

He’ll be more calm, won’t put himself in danger for the sake of being stronger, he won’t drag Killua in impossible situations where he has to clean up the mess. He won’t hurt his arm, which was the physical representation of his trauma. He’ll have grown.

Because that’s what HxH is ultimately about. Togashi is all about deconstructing and reconstructing his characters to show growth and healing from trauma. To show that tragedy happens, but at the end of the day, you can overcome your worst traits. At the end of the day, you can become a better person, no matter what.

EDIT : I actually wrote a post on how I believe Gon’s next character arc was foreshadowed here.

Thank you for reading this ! I hope it was all clear and that I expressed my thoughts correctly, without mischaracterizing Gon.

Full disclaimer that I am NOT a psychologist and I’m not attempting to diagnose Gon, I’m just linking the signs of emotional trauma due to abandonment issues to his character in an attempt to explain his actions.

Please feel free to give me your thoughts or criticism ! 

References : 

• “Understanding the pain of abandonment” 

• “How to overcome abandonment issues from childhood”

Those two articles are the foundation of my meta. They’re extremely interesting articles that show all the signs of abandonment on a child’s behavior, and it showcases the consequences of both emotional and physical abandonment on their self-worth. 

• “Fear of vulnerability and learning to trust again”

#hxh #hxh meta #meta #my meta #holy shit this took me so long to write AHAHHAA #i hope i didnt mischaracterize too badly #and i hope i was kinda clear #ty if you decide to read this <3<3<3